the pier by the lake
by wildflowers
Summary: athrunXnicol; desperate, hungry, yearning


Athrun first sees Nicol in the middle of a war games exercise, rising from behind a smoke screen like a fairy through mist. Nicol smiles, and aims, and Athrun is dead, the "x" on his chest coloured red and beeping.

Athrun introduces himself to Nicol that afternoon, unsure at first if Nicol is a he or a she (the androgynous name doesn't help). They are sitting by a lake at the end of the Academy. The lake is used by the amphibious mobile suits in their training, but for now it is quiet, and it is gorgeous.

Athrun remembers that afternoon long after everything, well, after everything ends, and he remembers every moment of it. They are sitting on the wooden observation jetty, legs dangling off the edge and into the water. It is hot, and the water is cool. Their boots lie discarded behind them. Nicol peels off his sweaty shirt (Athrun discovers that Nicol is indeed a he) and dips it in the water.

Light sparkles off the waves, and Nicol is laughing. Athrun closes his eyes, and he smells the saline from the water, the rough grain of the wood beneath him, and the faint fresh scent of the soap Nicol uses. Athrun thinks he would take a picture of this moment, if he could: the sound of laughter, the heat of day, the smell of camaraderie, the touch of the dying sun. Athrun thinks he would like this moment to last forever.

They graduate, and earn their red jackets, and join the Klueze team. The war unfurls, a story terrible and beautiful, and the world changes. Athrun holds Nicol through the first empty night after Rusty dies. Nicol weeps so prettily, Athrun thinks, even as his own insides tremble with grief. Athrun is there when Nicol learns how to wrap himself around the void that Rusty's death leaves.

And Nicol is the one Athrun looks to for comfort, Athrun who is betrayed by his dearest friend, Athrun who must fight his most beloved enemy, Athrun who goes into battle with his comlink silent so he does not hear the words of the Strike pilot.

For Athrun, Nicol is the one living thing in the pristine lifelessness of their ship. Athrun roams the empty white hallways, floats past the cold glass of the observation deck, paces the synthetic plastic and metal rooms. Athrun feels the hollowness of space pressing in on the ship, and sometimes that can be so terrifying. Athrun seeks out Nicol, and Nicol is the only one who knows how to fill the emptiness.

Together, Athrun and Nicol learn the irrevocable terror of death, and the fleeting joy of life. Of love.

The first time Athrun fights in space, he laughs with the sheer thrill of it. But later, a terror begins to creep into his bones. He cannot name the fear. It is not of death, an explosion blazing and beautiful and being torn apart by hard vacuum. It is not of abandonment, being left behind by the ship without air or water or food and having to wait agonisingly for certain death. Athrun cannot put his finger on the fear, but it is there, lying between the joints of his gundam, hiding behind the debris the fighting creates, wrapped around the dully blinking stars.

Athrun needs Nicol, he needs the gentleness, the kindness, the music that is Nicol. In return, Nicol needs the stability, needs to be able to believe in someone. Nicol makes Athrun promise him things, and Athrun promises: to listen to his piano, to love him, to never leave him. These are promises bathed in tears and desire, and promises that are meant to be kept and to be broken.

Athrun is sure his captain knows of their relationship, but not if he disapproves of it. His captain hides his thoughts behind his blank white mask and his even more inscrutable smile, but does not say a word, and so Athrun decides it is alright. Even if it isn't, Athrun doesn't care. He _needs_ this, more than anything. Nicol is his balm, his drug, the blood that flows in his veins and the air that he breathes. When Athrun returns with death in his eyes it is Nicol who helps him forget.

Yet, even as they cling to each other desperately, even as they make promises to last lifetimes, to last into the reaches of forever, Athrun can feel an end rushing towards them. Nicol is so alive in his arms, Nicol feels dead. Nicol is like deep space, cloaked in black, sprinkled with the tears of a million glittering stars that slowly wink out, one by one by one. Athrun drowns the feeling in the wine of Nicol's music, but it churns in the depths of their embraces. They whisper to each other as their ship falls through space, and they say they will live forever.

And then there is the final battle. Nicol's final battle. Athrun is stunned as Nicol takes the blow that is meant for him. Nicol, whose eyes are always smiling and whose laugh is always kind. Nicol, whose fingers know how to coax the most heartbreaking sounds from a piano. Nicol, whose life was pure and whose heart was innocent.

Athrun thinks of three things, as he hears Nicol's last gentle words brush in his comlink, and as he hears Nicol's helmet visor shatter. He thinks of how Nicol should not have died for him. He thinks that he has not broken any of his promises to Nicol, for it is Nicol who leaves him and not the other way around.

And as he self-destructs, he thinks of that afternoon by the Academy lake. The stillness of the memory fills his mind, growing until he can no longer see the ghost of the explosion behind his eyelids. And he thinks, he would have liked that moment to last forever.


End file.
